(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to identification systems. More particularly, it relates to a method and apparatus for identifying individuals based on biometric information such as fingerprints and photographs.
(b) Description of Related Art
In the past, identification of individuals that are processed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) or other governmental agencies, for example, has been a relatively slow process. Although many governmental agencies maintain large databases containing fingerprints, photographic information and other relevant data pertaining to individuals that use the services of the respective agencies, no known system has been able to quickly search and retrieve information relating to identification and interaction with these individuals. For example, the INS interacts with and is required to identify millions of persons each year, including immigration law violators, immigration benefit applicants, individuals requesting asylum, travelers, and visitors to the United States. Many encounters are processed under severe time constraints and with insufficient access to relevant information.
A co-pending, commonly owned patent application, Ser. No. 08/937,957 filed on Sep. 25, 1997 addresses this problem by providing a distributed biometric identification system and architecture for rapidly identifying individuals using fingerprint and photographic data. The disclosed architecture includes a centralized INS server, a plurality of distributed client workstations that are remotely located from the centralized server, and a wide area telecommunications network interconnecting the client workstations to the server. The centralized server includes a transaction management subsystem, a database for storing fingerprint minutiae of individuals that are of interest to users of the system, a matching controller subsystem coupled between the transaction management subsystem and the database for matching fingerprints of individuals to fingerprints stored in the database, and an image storage and retrieval subsystem for storing and retrieving electronic images of fingerprints and photographic images of individuals.
The above-described system is highly effective in allowing a large number of remotely located users to access, search, compare and retrieve various types of biometric identifying data/information. The present invention is directed to an improvement wherein user location options, user mobility, and overall user access to the distributed biometric system is even further enhanced.